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Recycled Pencil Tray

January 15, 2021 by Bernardé Leave a Comment

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Make a recycled pencil tray out of recycled plastic, paper maché and a few odds and ends!

Recycled pencil tray

We made a monster creature, as my youngest is still quite obsessed with the Spore game. You can adapt the basic idea to make almost any animal or creature.

You will need:
  • A plastic bottle
  • Two plastic trays (we used the small veggie trays)
  • A plastic lid
  • Newspaper
  • Masking tape
  • Modge Podge or wood glue
  • Craft paint
  • Googly eyes, chenille stems, pom pom, false nails, sisal
What to do:

Cut the top of the plastic bottle off and cut the bottle again about 1/4 way down but leave an overlap. The overlap will form the creature’s neck. Cut a groove in the plastic tray, the same length as the overlap on the bottle. Draw two hands on the extra plastic tray and cut out.

Pencil Tray Pieces

Secure the headpiece and the hands to the tray, using masking tape. Cover the hole on top of the head with a plastic lid.

Assembled tray

Tear small squares out of the newspaper. (An old telephone directory will also work well and will not stain your fingers as newspaper does.) Start with the head, paint a generous layer of podge and stick the paper squares, making sure the squares do not overlap.

Paper Maché step

If you do not have podge, you can use wood glue. Dilute with water at a 1:3 ratio and mix well. Paper Maché can get a bit messy so keep a bowl of water on your worktable to wash little hands.

Once you have covered all the plastic, leave your project to dry and add another layer of podge and paper. The more layers you paint, the stronger your project will become.

Paint a base coat in your preferred colour. If you are going to use light colours, paint a white coat first. This will save a lot of time to get even coverage when working with colours like red and yellow.

Painted pencil tray

Once your base coat is dry. paint patterns or spots in other colours.

Finish off the project by creating the face. You can simply paint a face or give the face a bit more depth by using googly eyes, chenille stems, false nails, a pom pom and sisal or string for hair.

Monster face

A cute- and usable, pencil tray to make with the kids, costing next to nothing!

Recycled Pencil Tray

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Filed Under: default, DIY, Kids Activities & Crafts

About Bernardé

Homeschool mom of two geeky, computer crazy boys. We didn't choose to homeschool, homeschooling chose us. It often is one crazy journey but I have no regrets. I am passionate about Art and being creative is a key ingredient in our homeschool recipe book.

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Welcome!

Hi! I'm Nadia! A teacher and a mommy of two, who loves to be creative and share easy activities you can do at home with your kids too! Read More…

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